David D. Friedman – Mittagsgespräch von Progress Foundation mit Avenir Suisse & Schweizer Monat
Zurich Speech
Dr. D. Friedman
One problem in any technical field is that technical fields have technical terms which sound self-explanatory and are not. I am sure the world is full of people who believe that they understand the theory of relativity, except for the mathematical details. After all the theory of relativity says things are relative, I understand that. But that of course is not what the theory of relativity says. Similarly in economics the term market failure sounds self-explanatory, but I will be arguing today that it is a deceptive label, that correctly understood not all ways in which markets can fail are market failure and market failure exists in many context other than markets. That it is a problem that humans face in markets, in political institutions, in armies, in families, in firms, and I will try to offer some examples.
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